Let's install Windows 11 on incompatible hardware

hsehestedt said:

Not at all! I love seeing what I can do on both old and low-power hardware. As an example, I am using a Mini PC that has a lowly Intel N95 CPU as my NAS and Plex box. I purchased that machine for $129 with everything except the mouse, keyboard, and monitor. It streams 4K video via Plex and serves my 40TB of storage with zero issues at all.

Older and low-power systems can have their place, and can sometimes do way more than people give them credit for.

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but that is not that old, my laptop I'm on right now is older
I think you might like my low-power experimental SSI cluster build i started on... but is on ice now since i have to pack all my stuff for a temporary move while they do a total renovation.... that is seven laptop motherboards between Pentium 4 up to intel dual core that i will build into one 4U chassis with one power supply.. as i have to solder on the motherboards, i feel i will start with old boards just in case i fry them.. before i start pick apart 8 core 16 thread laptops *LOL*

My test laptop (1st system specs) is an Intel Core 2 Duo without SSE4.2 running Windows 11 23H2 fine. I use it for retro gaming with emulators such as MAME, DosBox, Sega Master System, even WinUAE. I also play good old Popcap games (Bejeweled, Dino, Pengo, Waterbugs) and other light Windows games. Of course it also has Microsoft Office in case I want to do some work on it. I can also watch YouTube, Netflix and Disney Plus at standard definition and connect it to my projector via VGA at 1024x768 or 1280x720. I decide what is obsolete, not Microsoft! I might give it to my son a couple of years later.

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K
GPU: MSI GTX 1050 2 GB
RAM: 20 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte B75M-D3H

Works perfectly fine and stable with Windows 11 25H2. Zero issues so far.

leonsk29 said:

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K
GPU: MSI GTX 1050 2 GB
RAM: 20 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte B75M-D3H

Works perfectly fine and stable with Windows 11 25H2. Zero issues so far.

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Back then I was upgrading from an Intel Pentium 4 with many legacy PCI cards, so I chose Asus P8H61 that has three legacy PCI slots but only two RAM slots. Therefore I maxed RAM to 16GB and cannot add more...

leonsk29 said:

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K
GPU: MSI GTX 1050 2 GB
RAM: 20 GB DDR3 @ 1333 MHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte B75M-D3H

Works perfectly fine and stable with Windows 11 25H2. Zero issues so far.

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As well as my other old computer that I posted about recently in this thread, I also have a newer one. It's an Intel Core i7-3930K processor on a GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD5 motherboard. I built that on May 14, 2012. It's still going strong running Windows 11.

Don't believe it when some people say that computers have a short lifespan.

Stigg said:

As well as my other old computer that I posted about recently in this thread, I also have a newer one. It's an Intel Core i7-3930K processor on a GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD5 motherboard. I built that on May 14, 2012. It's still going strong running Windows 11.

Don't believe it when some people say that computers have a short lifespan.

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May I remind you of similar BS: Back in the 90's said electronics wouldn't last more than 20 years. Today you can find old coin-op arcade video games from the 80's still running perfectly adapted to accept Euro coins. Of course I don't plan to keep my current computer for 40+ years, but it should work perfectly with current hardware and software. A couple of years ago I was playing DOS games on my first 8088 PC. Too bad the PSU failed and I cannot replace it.

spapakons said:

May I remind you of similar BS: Back in the 90's said electronics wouldn't last more than 20 years. Today you can find old coin-op arcade video games from the 80's still running perfectly adapted to accept Euro coins. Of course I don't plan to keep my current computer for 40+ years, but it should work perfectly with current hardware and software.

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My guess is that a lot of computers get thrown out prematurely, when all it takes is a bit of attention to keep them running.
Some computer owners probably don't have the knowledge or patience to keep them going.

A dead motherboard is the only time I pronounce a computer dead. It's usually not worth fixing if the motherboard dies.

I've built dozens of computers for myself and others. I used to use ASUS motherboards, but I just wasn't getting the life out of them at the time. The last thing I want when I build a computer for someone else is to have the hassle of fixing a computer with a dead motherboard. I switched to GIGABYTE Ultra Durable motherboards many years ago, and have never switched to any other manufacturer to this day. All mine are still working fine.

Compatibility report: Continuing from my previous post about my combo PCIe SATA III + USB 3.0 card...
When updating to build 8973 I noticed that my USB 3.0 port on my card has difficulty detecting a USB flash drive. This might also was the case back in build 8875, not sure if it is only a 8973 issue. I removed it, reinserted carefully many times, no detection. When it was finally detected it worked once and then could not be detected again after removing it and reconnecting it. I though it was this specific USB flash drive that was faulty, but I had the same symptoms with two different flash drives. My first thought was to delete all the related USB devices from Device Manager (see my previous post) and restart. This worked once, but again the same. The original ASMedia USB 3.0 drivers version 1.14.3.0 bundled with the card were too old and caused incompatibilities and freezes when I bought it, so I removed them and used Microsoft drivers, up to now. So I Googled for new drivers and I got results from Dell support site. I decided to test one, so I downloaded version 1.16.32.1_A01_01 from 2016 (first Dell support result) and it worked! I then Googled again this time only for Dell results and asked Google AI to sort by date. It revealed that the latest official ASMedia driver is version 1.16.61.1_A17_03 from 2020 which also works flawlessly so far. That is another example why I insist on official OEM drivers and use Windows Update only as last resort. To maximize compatibility. Also it might be my idea, but I think the USB flash drive is working faster with the official drivers.

For anyone having an ASMedia USB 3.0 device, according to Aida64 my PCIe card has these chips:
ASMedia ASM1042 USB 3.0 xHCI Controller
ASMedia ASM1061 PCI-E x1 SATA-III Controller
ASMedia ASM1083 PCI-E to PCI Bridge Controller
ASMedia ASM1182 PCI-E 2.0 Switch

So if you also have ASM1042, this official ASMedia USB 3.0 driver from Dell support will work fine:
ASMedia USB eXtensible Host Controller Driver 1.16.61.1, A17 15th July 2020

Marie SWE said:

but that is not that old, my laptop I'm on right now is older
I think you might like my low-power experimental SSI cluster build i started on... but is on ice now since i have to pack all my stuff for a temporary move while they do a total renovation.... that is seven laptop motherboards between Pentium 4 up to intel dual core that i will build into one 4U chassis with one power supply.. as i have to solder on the motherboards, i feel i will start with old boards just in case i fry them.. before i start pick apart 8 core 16 thread laptops *LOL*

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Now that sounds like a cool project and, yes, that machine is not very old, which is why I specified older and low-power machines as two distinct categories. I guess that the "and" should really be an "or" to indicate that these are two distinct separate categories. That machine falls into the low-power category. But I do have some older machines like an HP Elitebook laptop that is now 14 years old. Runs Windows 11 like a charm.

hsehestedt said:

But I do have some older machines like an HP Elitebook laptop that is now 14 years old. Runs Windows 11 like a charm.

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My System Two is 15 years old. Not only has it been running Windows 11 since the launch in October 2021, it also multi-boots the Insider Experimental 29xxx series and 26300 series (the channels formerly known as Canary and Dev).

hsehestedt said:

Now that sounds like a cool project and, yes, that machine is not very old, which is why I specified older and low-power machines as two distinct categories. I guess that the "and" should really be an "or" to indicate that these are two distinct separate categories. That machine falls into the low-power category. But I do have some older machines like an HP Elitebook laptop that is now 14 years old. Runs Windows 11 like a charm.

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Yeah i have a few "tech-fun" projects going.. But as its Linux based projects i wont make a thread about it in here on a windows forum

Bree said:

My System Two is 15 years old. Not only has it been running Windows 11 since the launch in October 2021, it also multi-boots the Insider Experimental 29xxx series and 26300 series (the channels formerly known as Canary and Dev).

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Nice! Yeah, that old HP is still useful for some things. I play around a lot with unattended installation and that laptop seems to be a very early system in the UEFI timeline. It has the ability to switch to legacy BIOS mode so that's good for testing things that I am doing to make sure it doesn't break installation on those systems.

Help me install Windows 11 26H2 on unsupported hardware: 2nd-generation Intel Core i7. If possible, not beta versions.

gaffar said:

Help me install Windows 11 26H2 on unsupported hardware: 2nd-generation Intel Core i7. If possible, not beta versions.

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Version 26H2 is not released yet for everyone (general availability), it might only be available as an Insider's version (Beta testing). However you can install 25H2 now and use the 26H2 Enablement Package when it will be available this October to switch to 26H2. If you want to upgrade from Windows 10 download the latest ISO and disconnect from the internet. Mount the ISO (Open with File Explorer) and it should open a virtual DVD drive with the contents, say with drive letter D: Now press WIN+R to open a Run box and execute this command:

D:\setup /product server

Change D: if different. This command tricks Setup that is going to install a Server version for which it never checks compatibility. Proceed like any other Windows upgrade.

If you want to do a format (clean installation) of Windows 11, create a bootable USB flash drive with Rufus. When you click to start creating it will present a list with options to bypass compatibility check. Select all of them. From there you can also select to bypass the requirement to use a Microsoft account and create a local Administrator account. For more details see my older posts in this thread that describe all the steps.

gaffar said:

Help me install Windows 11 26H2 on unsupported hardware: 2nd-generation Intel Core i7. If possible, not beta versions.

Click to expand...

spapakons said:

Version 26H2 is not released yet for everyone (general availability), it might only be available as an Insider's version (Beta testing).

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The Insider Experimental (26H2) build 26300.xxxx is currently the only available version of 26H2. The 26H2 public release is expected in September/October.

spapakons said:

However you can install 25H2 now and use the 26H2 Enablement Package when it will be available this October to switch to 26H2....

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26H2 and 25H2 both share a common set of system files with 24H2. Installing the small enablement package was how I upgraded my unsupported 24H2 devices to 25H2, and will be how they get 26H2.

spapakons said:

...If you want to do a format (clean installation) of Windows 11, create a bootable USB flash drive with Rufus.... For more details see my older posts in this thread that describe all the steps.

Click to expand...

There's a tutorial for this too. See....

I was recently installing some Windows updates at my unsupported 4th generation Core-i5 hybrid tablet/laptop Fujitsu Stylistic Q702 and I loaded winver to see had build I had reached. I was surprised to see it was still running Windows 11 24H2 instead of 25H2. Probably I postponed the switch until it was safe but I never did it. No worries, I ran the 25H2 Enablement Package and a few seconds and a restart later it was running Windows 11 25H2. No compatibility check, no changes to my customizes system icons, no driver conflict, nothing. Like nothing changed, except the version was now 25H2. Since 26H2 can be installed the same way, I don't worry. I will just download the 26H2 Enablement Package when the times comes and switch all my computers currently running 25H2.

You can download it from this forum:


Applicable for all systems running 24H2. Use the x64 version for a standard Intel or AMD system, or the ARM64 version for an ARM 64-bit system.

So I will try to install Insider builds,

spapakons said:

Version 26H2 is not released yet for everyone (general availability), it might only be available as an Insider's version (Beta testing). However you can install 25H2 now and use the 26H2 Enablement Package when it will be available this October to switch to 26H2. If you want to upgrade from Windows 10 download the latest ISO and disconnect from the internet. Mount the ISO (Open with File Explorer) and it should open a virtual DVD drive with the contents, say with drive letter D: Now press WIN+R to open a Run box and execute this command:

D:\setup /product server

Change D: if different. This command tricks Setup that is going to install a Server version for which it never checks compatibility. Proceed like any other Windows upgrade.

If you want to do a format (clean installation) of Windows 11, create a bootable USB flash drive with Rufus. When you click to start creating it will present a list with options to bypass compatibility check. Select all of them. From there you can also select to bypass the requirement to use a Microsoft account and create a local Administrator account. For more details see my older posts in this thread that describe all the steps.

Click to expand...

If I follow your method. Would it be Windows 11 26H2? Because once I did so, it was Windows 11 21H2. But I will try again,